Compare Go to Chess

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Table of contents

Quotes

"While the Baroque rules of chess could only have been created by humans, the rules of go are so elegant, organic, and rigorously logical that if intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, they almost certainly play go."

-- Edward Lasker

"You don't have to be really good anymore to get good results. What's happening with Chess is that it's gradually losing its place as the par excellence of intellectual activity. Smart people in search of a challenging board game might try a game called Go."

-- [ext] Hans Berliner, The New York Times, Feb 6, 2003.

"We have no intel. We can't find the insurgents. When they bomb something, we only know about it afterward. We can't figure them out. Someone said, 'We play chess, they play Go.'[6] All we can do is lose. All we can do is bomb."

-- Seymour Hersh? quoted on [ext] Common Dreams

Similarities

Differences

Should we Compare the two Games at All?

Whether comparing Go to chess is a BadHabit or not is in dispute (see /discussion), but what isn't in dispute is that it's a bad habit to ridicule either game by comparing it to only the good qualities of the other game. Both games have their strengths and weaknesses. When you're in love, the mole on your beloved's nose becomes a beauty mark.

In the west, Go is a bit of an underdog to chess, in terms of popularity. One needn't disparage it in order to advocate Go, as Go can stand on its own. If you must compare or criticise (and it's very difficult not to), try to do it thoughtfully and academically and not as an act of proselytizing.

See Also

Footnotes

[0] The typical territory versus influence exchange in go has an analogy in chess, namely a sacrifice of material for the initiative. The difference is that essentially every go game features such exchanges. ilanpi

[1] The weaker player is given a handicap; he starts with a number of stones already on the board, before the first move. This is equivalent to the stronger player passing several times, which is possible because the goal is not focussed on a single figure but on gaining overall territory and because the Go board is initially empty.

[2] Points are customarily given to the player taking the white stones. This is called "komi", and is usually 6.5 points.

[3] When komi is given, a fractional point is usually added. This makes it impossible to have an equal result. (Draws are still possible in other ways, but they're very rare.)

[4] For agreement and disagreement with this statement see the headline "Handicap" on the /discussion page.

[5] Sez who? --Bill

[6] This is a reference to the John F. Kennedy Cold War statement: "We play poker, they play chess." Since journalist Hersh couldn't get this very well-known reference right, you got to wonder about the rest of his inflammatory statement.

About this Page

WME: Sebastian


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